Six million kilograms of halloumi are piling up in Cyprus. This huge quantity of the grill cheese had accumulated in warehouses because demand at home and abroad had plummeted in the Corona pandemic, Trade Minister Natas Pilides told parliament on Tuesday. He announced that the country’s embassies are to look for buyers abroad. Halloumi is the Mediterranean island’s most important export.
Although exports have picked up recently, dairies prefer to sell fresh products. “Supplying larger quantities to our regular customers in the EU would mean that we would have to drastically lower prices, which would lead to a devaluation of the product,” Andreas Andreou of the Association of Cypriot Milk Producers told the Financial Mirror newspaper.
In April, the European Union had registered halloumi as a protected designation of origin (PDO) after a seven-year campaign. Stocks of halloumi produced before 1 October are not allowed to carry the EU label, so authorities are looking for markets outside the EU.
The salty cheese, which can be eaten fresh or grilled, achieved record sales of €260m in 2020 with exports of 40m kilos. This is a huge jump compared to 2013, when exports of halloumi brought in less than €76m. The most important customers are Great Britain and Sweden.
